Tuesday, April 4, 2017

Hello lovelies! It gives me great pleasure today to host Gabrielle
Mathieu and her new book, “The Falcon Flies Alone”! For other stops on her Goddess Fish
Promotions Book Tour, please click on the banner above or any of the images in
this post.

Be sure to make it to the end of this post to enter to win a $20
Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC!! Also,
come back daily to interact with Gabrielle and to increase your chances of
winning!

This book is on sale during the tour for ONLY $0.99!!! See below for more details.

Thanks for stopping by!
Wishing you lots of luck in this fabulous giveaway!

The Falcon Flies Alone

by Gabrielle Mathieu

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GENRE:
Historical Fantasy

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BLURB:

As the sun rises on
a quiet Swiss mountain village in 1957, runaway Peppa Mueller wakes up naked
and stranded on the roof of her employer’s manor, with no idea how she got
there. As she waits for help, she struggles to piece together fragmented
memories of the previous night. Did she really witness the brutal massacre of a
local family? Did she kill them? Her fear of sinister house guest Dr. Unruh
fuels her panic—as do electrifying flashes of a furious falcon, trapped inside
her.

Wanted for murder,
Peppa flees the police, intent on finding out if there’s a scientific
explanation or if she’s just going mad. Her godfather, world-renowned chemist
Dr. Kaufmann, risks his career to help her. In the meantime, Peppa fights her
attraction to the handsome priest from India who offers her shelter. With their
help, she not only finds Dr. Unruh but places herself at his mercy. His
experiments may be the reason Peppa now shares her body with a bloodthirsty
bird of prey—but the revenge she plans could kill them both.

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EXCERPT ONE:

I
thought talking would be a relief, but it wasn’t. When I finally stopped,
exhausted by the effort of reliving that dreadful night, I had a knot in the
pit of my stomach.

Da
and I wanted to help troubled people with Paxarbital. Now I’d become one of
them, a murderer suffering under hallucinations.

I
raised my face to meet Stefan’s clear blue eyes. I saw no condemnation. “I told
you I killed Hans Wäspi. Isn’t confession supposed to be good for the soul? I
don’t feel any better.”

“Only
God can forgive your sins. I can’t.”

Three
dead. At least. “What about the woman who brought us our drinks?”

“Anita
Eugster? No one’s seen her. They’re looking through the ruins of the kitchen
for her bones.”

Despair
descended over me, and I had to fight an urge to scream. I splashed my face
with cold water, biting my lip to fight the pain inside.

“They
found me on the roof this morning.” My voice sounded hollow. “Did you hear?”

Stefan
moved away from me a bit, rubbing his hands as if he was cold. I understood.
I’d like to get away from myself too, if I only could.

I
dug my nails in my palm. I would not be weak. “We really were poisoned. I could
prove it.”

“I
saw your wings, Patrizia.”

“My
name is Peppa.”

“You
turned into an angel.”

I
rubbed my eyes. What I needed was a lab.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

GUEST POST:

I’d love to talk
about how the book cover came about for The Falcon Flies Alone, because it’s also a story about
working with a new group of people, the people in our publishing co-op, Five Directions Press.

To start with, I
have to tell you that I’d been flogging that novel to agents everywhere. I made
lists and lists of agents, looked up their other authors or their favorite
bands, referenced those in my e-mails. I guess no one was seeing dollar signs
about a female Swiss chemist in the fifties, even though I was envisioning Mad
Men meets Orphan Black (Two terrific shows by the way.) By the time I came
across Five Directions Press, I’d already had a challenging encounter with a
cynical lawyer who wanted to publish my novel in return for global rights, some
of which hadn’t even been invented yet. I turned him down, and resigned myself
to self-publishing. I found an artist via an internet site, and the two of us
discussed a cover where my heroine Peppa is descending into the dank and scary
basement where the experiments take place.

In meantime, Five
Directions Press invited me to join them. In return for my editing services,
C.P. Lesley would format the book for publication, and Courtney J. Hall would
design the cover, with my input. But I already had this other artist, so I
tried to get them to agree to accept our idea. Because it’s a co-op, and
they’re supportive women, they went along with it, and kept their misgivings
private. When I got the file from the artist though, I had to admit that what
had looked so great in a thumbnail size, looked like a terrible Photoshop job
on closer inspection. Nothing was in proportion; the model’s head was obviously
pasted onto another body, and a glove fastened to the wall looked like a waving
hand. It was a disaster. After I then turned to a local photographer, because I
was still enamoured of the gritty, dank cellar, C.P Lesley and I had some brisk
exchanges. In meantime, Courtney had designed this beautiful appealing cover,
but I just couldn’t see it.

Because I was so
used to having to do everything myself.

Three years of
trial and error had exacted their tribute. I was stubborn, and I would
persevere, but I couldn’t accept that I was actually going to get help without
me having to push and push for something good.

I couldn’t accept a
gift, I’d been trying so long.

Luckily, after some
tweaks, the current cover emerged, and we all agreed it was a go. In meantime,
I commissioned my website designer to use the chilly original concept, although
I have to admit it wouldn’t have made a good book cover. You can take a look at
my depressed Peppa in the cellar at http://gabriellemathieu.com/category/blog/.
Can’t you just hear the Cure playing in the background?

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AUTHOR BIO:

Gabrielle Mathieulived on three
continents by the age of eight. She’d experienced the bustling bazaars of
Pakistan, the serenity of Swiss mountain lakes, and the chaos of the
immigration desk at the JFK airport. Perhaps that’s why she developed an
appetite for the unusual and disorienting. Her fantasy books are grounded in
her experience of different cultures and interest in altered states of
consciousness (mostly white wine and yoga these days). The Falcon Flies Alone
is her debut novel.

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This contest is sponsored by a third party. Fabulous and
Brunette is a registered host of Goddess Fish Promotions. Prizes are given away by the sponsors and not
Fabulous and Brunette. The featured author and Goddess Fish Promotions are
solely responsible for the giveaway prize.